The Guardian: The CIA found no evidence to support Israel's designation of Palestinian organizations as terrorist

The Guardian newspaper published a report in which it said that US intelligence was unable to confirm Israel's accusations against Palestinian human rights organizations, describing them as terrorist, explaining that it was not able to find evidence to support the Israeli claim, but the United States did not reject it.

The British Guardian newspaper reported that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was unable to confirm Israel's decision to designate prominent Palestinian institutions as "terrorist organisations".

And the newspaper explained in a report on Monday that despite these results, it "did not lead to any official US criticism of this controversial step."

The newspaper said that a secret report by the (CIA) revealed the intelligence agency's inability to find evidence to support the Israeli decision to classify six Palestinian NGOs as terrorists.

In October, Israel designated the Addameer Prisoners Support Organization, Human Rights and Al-Haq, the Bisan Research and Development Center, Defense for Children International, the Union of Agricultural Workers' Committees, and the Union of Women's Committees, as terrorist organizations.

Israel claimed to be fronts for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. At the beginning of this year, Israel submitted an intelligence report to the (CIA) on the classification, but the US intelligence assessment of the information contained in it did not find any evidence to support the Israeli allegations, according to two sources familiar with the study.

One of the two sources said the CIA report "doesn't say any group is guilty of anything." The second source said the report was top secret.

Several countries, some of them allies of Israel, rejected the terrorist designation because it was not based on evidence or foundation. The United States did not criticize or express doubts about the designation, but it did not include any of the human rights and trade union associations on the US terrorist lists.

Omar Shakir, director of Human Rights Watch in Palestine and Israel, said that in light of the CIA's assessment, "the United States should clearly request the Israeli government to rescind the designation and allow these organizations to continue their important work."

He added, "The truth here is that the United States has long turned a blind eye and given the green light to the serious violations by the Israeli government."

"The position of Palestinian human rights organizations highlights a greater failure of US government policy than the Israeli-Palestinian issue and puts the United States outside the consensus of the human rights movement," he said.

Last Thursday, an Israeli military force stormed the headquarters of 7 Palestinian institutions in the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh and closed them, claiming that the organizations are "a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine," according to the newspaper.

On August 20, nine European Union member states expressed concern about Israeli attacks on Palestinian civil society organizations and the obstruction of their work.

On August 18, the US State Department condemned Israel's obstruction of Palestinian organizations' work.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, in a press briefing, that Washington is "concerned about the Israeli forces closing the offices of Palestinian civil society organizations."

Last October, the Israeli authorities decided to close 6 Palestinian institutions: Addameer for Prisoner Care and Human Rights, Law for Human Rights “Al-Haq,” Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Women’s Committees, the Health Work Committees Foundation, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the International Movement for Defense of Children (Palestine Branch ), claiming that they are "terrorist organizations", and then closed them again, after adding a seventh institution to them, which is the Health Work Committees.

At the time, European countries stopped working with those six institutions covered by the resolution, but they returned on July 11, and announced that they would continue to work with them, due to the lack of evidence against the Israeli claim.